


Wedding Dress

by WanderingTheRailroads



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Crying, Deathfic, F/M, Feels, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Old Age, Older Characters, Pain, Post-Canon, Wedding, Wedding Dress, Wedding Rings, dream - Freeform, ooc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-18
Updated: 2014-05-18
Packaged: 2018-01-25 13:32:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1650404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WanderingTheRailroads/pseuds/WanderingTheRailroads
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, he dreams of her wearing that old wedding dress they found.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wedding Dress

The tiny church is packed to the brim, with familiar faces everywhere.

 

Scanning the crowd, he sees Auruo enthusiastically clapping, somehow biting his tongue in the process yet again. Erd and Gunther are both giving him the thumbs-up and Erwin just smiles smugly, as if to say “I knew it would come to this, eventually.” Eren and Mikasa are holding hands, beside the old drunkard Hannes who is hoisting little Carla -named after her grandmother, who is off somewhere conversing with Grandpa Jaeger- on his shoulders.

 

So many others are there too:  
Hanji, still as young and enthusiastic as ever.  
Armin, now older and more mature-looking.  
Jean, arguing with Sasha and Connie. Typical.  
Mike, half-asleep leaning on Nanaba’s shoulder.  
Ymir and Christa, crying their eyes out with joy.

 

Levi even notices the Shifter trio in a corner. Annie realizes he’s staring, and immediately does the old hand-over-heart salute that he hasn’t seen in a while, ever since the Titan conflict ended. Ever the professional, it seems.

 

Then the church doors swing open, enveloping the audience in warm sunlight. He doesn’t see the sunlight, though; all he sees is Petra, radiant as the dawn in her wedding gown.

 

Levi remembers the first time he saw Petra wearing that old gown, years ago now it seems.

 

His squad had been assigned cleaning and inspection duty in the storage warehouse, which had formerly belonged to a merchant company and thus contained multiple segmented rooms and corridors for the easy categorization of stored goods. While Gunther and Erd -Auruo was in the infirmary with a broken arm- cleared the equipment store, Levi accompanied Petra into the depths of the warehouse, where occasionally, an individual could find rather interesting items, including pre-Wall migration artifacts that nobody knew how to use. Passing through a long corridor, they emerged into some sort of room resembling a rather oversized multipurpose hall.

 

Later, Levi had been behind the podium’s curtains, cleaning a particularly tricky stained-glass engraved with ornate patterns reminiscent of Wall Cult symbolism, when he realized that he could no longer hear Petra rummaging through the boxes beside him. Puzzled, he peered around and noticed that the heavy curtains were slightly parted. Rising to his feet, Levi pulled the curtain aside.

 

In the center of the hall Petra stood haloed by sunlight streaming from the broken, dust-clouded windows, wearing a rather yellowed and frilly wedding gown that she had probably found in a box of old clothes. She waltzed and mimed the part of an innocent bride-to-be, her eyes shut all the while in bliss. For a moment Levi allowed himself to dream of things to come, of himself in a nice suit and Petra beaming as always, and of kisses under the stars. Then he snapped back to reality. “Petra. What are you doing? What the hell is that rag you’re wearing?”

 

Startled from her dreamy state, she blushed deeply when confronted by Levi’s piercing stare.  
“S-sorry! It’s….it’s a wedding dress.” In a moment of panic, she even forgot to address him by rank.  
“That thing is filthy. Take it off, please. And get back to work, break’s over.”

“Yes sir!”  
The following day, Levi secretly paid another visit to the warehouse. A week later, the gown was as good as new. He never told Petra about it, until they started planning their wedding.

 

Now he stands at the altar and watches her glide, almost effortlessly, past rows and rows of their friends and comrades. In the audience, Mr. Ral begins to cry, and a hushed silence descends over the hall as Petra takes her place before Levi. Pastor Nick is the one officiating, somehow Hanji managed to convince him to marry Levi and Petra off.

The ceremonial words are all a jumble to Levi, lost as he is in Petra, and Pastor Nick has to nudge him out of his stupor, just in time for the most important bit. He slips a ring onto her finger gently, and utters those profound words.

“I do.”

Everyone erupts into cheers and claps and shouts of euphoria, as Levi plants a kiss –not his first, and certainly not his last- on Petra’s waiting lips. They linger for a while in that state of ecstasy, before she breaks the kiss and starts off down the hall towards a doorway suddenly filled with unnaturally bright light.

 

Levi knows he’s supposed to follow her, to walk by her side out of that door into a whole new life waiting for them, but he just can’t. His feet are rooted to the spot, his head hurts like hell, and the faces of the audience are distorting and darkening, mocking. Petra reaches the doorway, and turns back to face him.

“I love you, Levi. Goodbye.” She steps into the light, and is consumed by it.

 

Levi, his hair thinning and whitened, is jolted awake. Across his body are crisscrossed scars inflicted by years of conflict, the damaged flesh giving way to wrinkles that mar his face and make him look even sterner than he was earlier in life.  
In his drawer lies an old wedding gown, never used, with two simple gold rings resting beside it. He contemplated burning it once, after that disastrous forest mission, but eventually decided against doing so.

 

Levi never told Petra about the refurbished dress. All he sees now is the darkened doorway of his bedroom, devoid of light.

**Author's Note:**

> Levi's a bit OOC here. And shy Petra is shy. Anyway, ugh, the feels.
> 
> I know Levi/Petra fics are a dime a dozen, but I just HAD to write this heartbreaking piece.


End file.
